Re: [lojban] 2 questions about translation into Lojban

[Pierre Abbat <phma@phma.optus.nu>]

On Monday 09 May 2011 15:37:15 Escape Landsome wrote:
> 1°) the first is french "Grand Silence", which means "Great Silence"
> in english, "great" in the sense of "great" (and maybe also "deep")
>
> I didn't find "silence" in the dictionary, should somebody create it ?
>  Assuming silence is X in lojban, is "le X banli [ku]" the correct
> translation for "Great Silence" ?

"banli kamsmaji" or "banli nunsmaji", or similarly for some other NU, 
depending on what exactly you mean.

> 2°) I want to find a translation for a pun.   A friend of mine is
> nicknamed "Cochonfucius", which is a pun between "cochon" = pig and
> "confucius" = Kong fu-zi, the famous chinese philosopher.   (This is
> because of some chinese novel character that assumes a porcine form to
> visit the world and teach philosophy ;-)
>
> What would be the best way to keep the pun understable, assuming of
> course there is one ?  "Pig" is xarju, "pig species" is selxarju, has
> anybody an idea ?

The rafsi is "xaj", so if you can think of a Chinese philosopher name that 
goes with "xaj", try that.

> By the way, does there exist "puns" in Lojban ?

Yes, though there are no pairs of brivla with identical sound or spelling and 
completely different meaning. Here's an example:

lu li'o ka'u le nu le terdi cu carna le jendu cu cacra li revo li'u
i lu lo'e nu catra zo'u sei la noltroni'u cu cusku ko vimcu le stedu ti li'u

"cacra" and "catra" sound similar, but not quite the same, as in the original 
the two words "axis" and "axes" are pronounced slightly differently. Puns can 
rarely be translated literally. In this case the Lojban for "axis" 
is "jendu", and an axe (which is "ka'amru") isn't mentioned.

I've thought of writing a book called "The Flower's Snare". I'm not the right 
person to write it (it needs an entomologist/anthologist/palynologist), but I 
thought of a Lojban title: "xrula xlura".

Pierre
-- 
The Black Garden on the Mountain is not on the Black Mountain.

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